French-German meeting to discuss A400M

PARIS, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- French Defense Minister Herve Morin Wednesday in Paris met with his German counterpart Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg to discuss a range of security issues including the Airbus A400M military transport aircraft program.

Defensenews.com quoted Morin as saying that zu Guttenberg's first visit to France as defense minister would include talks on the troubled plane program. It is in a standstill until the project partners agree how it will proceed after serious delays. The original $30 billion contract is slated to be renegotiated, but observers say the plane project could be scrapped altogether. South Africa earlier this month canceled its order for eight planes.

A ministerial meeting from the countries involved is scheduled to take place in Berlin on Thursday, a German Defense Ministry spokesman said earlier this week.

"Before a decision is made, anything you read at the moment is rumor, speculation or agenda-setting on the part of others," the spokesman said.

One of the most ambitious European military aircraft projects ever, the A400M is intended to replace the aging airlifting capacity of Europe's military powers. The turbo-prop carrier would be slightly larger than Lockheed Martin's C130J Hercules and able to transport troops and large equipment into combat zones. The project, however, has been delayed by problems with the software running the plane's engines.

Airbus, the plane maker owned by EADS, missed a March 31 deadline to get the A400M into the air but has promised to do so before the end of the year. Launched in 2003, the project is three to four years behind schedule and nearly $7 billion over budget, the French Senate recently found.

Germany, France, Britain and Spain are the main supporters of the project, with 162 orders among them. Of the four, only Britain has in the past publicly threatened to leave the project. Financial problems have already caused London to try to pull out of another costly order, the Eurofighter jet plane.

EADS is eager to accommodate British concerns, as a pullout of any major partner could cause the entire project to fail. If that happens, EADS would have to pay back government subsidies worth more than $8 billion. EADS invests around $100 million per month in the project, to which 6,000 jobs are linked, the company has said.

All four nations are in desperate need of the A400M.

Britain is under pressure to modernize its current fleet of Hercules and Boeing C-17 carriers, worn by the mission in Afghanistan.

France and Germany want new transport planes to replace their four-decade-old C-160 Transall machines, which are slow and inflexible.

The A400M would be faster than the Transall and able to carry double the weight for three times the distance -- crucial for the mission in Afghanistan, where Germany has 4,000 troops.